


Tiger Balm

by captorvatiing



Series: Bropsee for the Soul [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Interspecies Relationship(s), M/M, Massage, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Pale Porn, Post-Sburb/Sgrub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 10:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3807250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captorvatiing/pseuds/captorvatiing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Centuries as a Helmsman has taken its toll on the Psiioniic's back. Luckily he's landed himself a partner who's good with his hands.</p><p>This is 200% self indulgent fluff without plot, enjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiger Balm

The last bars of the My Little Pony theme trail off, winter is thoroughly wrapped up, next week the girls learn another important lesson about friendship! Find out how, after the commercial break.

“Dirk?” He hums in response, preoccupied by his work. “Can I turn this- Ow, shit fucker. Turn this shit off yet?” 

He looks up and levels you a steady stare through his shades that somehow communicates the sentiment of “what the fuck was that?” without appearing to move a single muscle. You raise an eyebrow back at him and pretend that nothing happened so he grunts and tosses the remote your way, turning back to the graveyard of smuppet parts spread out on his desk without further comment, vocal or otherwise. You flick idly through the channels until you find something interesting enough to pretend to watch. A few minutes of some awful new food channel special about greasy Alternian street food floats in one ear and out of the other before your back twinges again. Biting your tongue hides a good deal of your pain, but when you risk a shifty glance sideways at him Dirk’s turned around in his chair with his chin on his hand and his eyes fixed on you.

“It’s nothing.” You say quickly, “I’m fine.” 

“Sure you are.” He answers, brushing smuppet off his lap and he hauls himself out of his chair. “And I’m the mayor of Houston. That’s the fourth time in the last two hours. I mean I gotta appreciate your dedication to the symmetry gag but listening to you pretending not to suffer is getting real old.” He drops onto the sofa next to you and like the mature adult you are you stubbornly look the other way. “What’s wrong?” He presses.

“Nothing, fuck off.” 

“I dunno why you’ve gotta be such a fuckin’ shit about this stuff.” He says, “You’re gonna be lying on your deathbed bitching about people fussin’ over you. Some unfortunate EMT’s gonna pull you out of a car wreck and you’re gonna be going, cough, hack. I’m fine, no really officer. Hunky dory. What? My legs? Nah I don’t need those, I’m fine.” 

“You know perfectly well that I don’t drive.” You turn and wrinkle your nose at him. “And I’ve lived without legs you insensitive fuck.” 

Of course you realise too late that he said that to get a rise out of you and you kick yourself for falling for it arse over tit but he’s got you now and there’s no point trying to escape. Getting away from Dirk once he’s got it in his head to help you whether you like it or not is like trying to escape a bear trap. You’ve gotten rather attached to your new legs and your fangs weren’t really made for gnawing through bone so you sigh and resign yourself to your fate.

“...Fine.” You say to the impassive black expanse of his shades. You wonder if he’d bite you if you tried to snatch them. “I’m fine, it’s just my back and there’s nothing you can do about it so-”

“Like hell there ain’t. Turn around.” 

“Dirk.”

“Psii.”

You stare at eachother, or rather you stare at your own reflection, the little crease between your patchy brows illuminated in red and blue and you assume he’s staring back. The show on the TV cuts to commercial, loud shouting over some awful free for use jingle and you make a show of huffing and crossing your arms as you turn your back on him. 

“Sweet, now take your shirt off.”

“Dirk!” 

He laughs as you spin back around to face him. “You don’t have to if you don’t wanna but it’s better if you do.” 

“What are you going to do?” 

“Something magical. If you’re not gonna take your shirt off shut up and turn back around.” 

“ _Dirk._ ” You huff, impatient.

He leans back, a gesture of peace, and holds up his hands. “I’m going to rub some life back into those cranky old man muscles of yours with these totally un-fakey magic mitts. I will have you pooling under my hands like warm butter in just a few, but you gotta turn around, and you gotta trust me.”

You consider the offer for a long moment before hauling your shirt over your head and throwing it at him. The thick grey material catches on the point of his shades for a moment and you have just enough time for all that confidence to seep out into the cold air leaving you huddled in on yourself with your arms crossed against your skinny mangled chest. He’s seen it all before, every inch from the awkward jut of your ribs to the nasty twist of your scars. You know he doesn’t mind, you swear you do, it’s just that you have to keep reminding yourself. Luckily for you for such a stubborn, impatient asshole he has a remarkable amount of patience reserved just for occasions like this. Does that make you special? You decide that it does, whether he thinks so or not. 

“You alright?” He says, carefully, testing the waters.

You force yourself to uncross your arms and then regret it, because you don’t know where to put them. “I’m fine.”

He keeps his hands still in front of him the whole time, moving only to knock your sweater into his lap. People are quite often scared of you and you’re familiar with the kind of fear you inspire. It’s desperate and it vibrates in the air with a sort of animal urgency. Trolls and humans alike stare at you like a hopbeast backed into its hole, staring up the nose of a digging barkfiend. You understand where they’re coming from, you really do, but you wish they wouldn’t. Dirk is nervous now, you can see it in the way his little finger twitches when you open your mouth to speak but this kind of nervous is different. He’s not worried about what will happen when you dig the hole wide enough, he’s worried that you might injure yourself in the attempt. There is nothing remotely hopbeast-like about Dirk. 

“Really, Dirk, I swear.” You say, consciously loosening your shoulders and snatching your jumper out of his lap so you have something to fuss with.

“Alrighty.” He says. “Turn around, I’m gonna touch your back, okay?”

“Okay.” 

“Bracing for impact.”

"Dirk.”

“Skin to skin contact in three, two…”

You suck in a breath when he does touch you and sigh heavily. “I thought this was supposed to be relaxing.”

“Hell yeah.”

“Shut the fuck up then.”

“Wow.” He deadpans. “Fuckin’ rude.”

He does shut the fuck up after that though. It takes you a moment to get used to the feeling of him touching you. His hands are rough from years of work and strife training and with his fingers spread out as he runs his hands up and down your back, his thumbs running parallel on either side of the mess that used to be your spine, they’re easily wide enough to cover your shoulders completely. When he pushes his hands up you can feel where the tip of his finger is healing over from a minor sewing injury earlier in the day. You fixate on that for a while, the ticklish drag of the dry scratch against your sensitive skin. The TV drones on, needling your awareness until you flick the switch with your psionics and leave the room oddly quiet. There’s no shrieking of wrigglers or technological ruckus in the Strider apartment today just the soft noise of Dirk’s breathing just slightly out of time with yours and the quiet click of the ironic surfer beads he wears around his neck as he moves. You sigh out of your nose, long and tired and find yourself leaning back into his hands as he wraps them around your sides, his fingers fitting round the corners of your grub scars as he digs his thumbs in under your shoulder blades. An involuntary groan escapes you and you can practically hear the smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth when he speaks.

“Good?”

You say “Fuck off.” and arch your back so that he does it again.

After a couple more long lazy moments (Minutes? Seconds? Hours? You’re not sure.) he pats your hip and you feel his nose in the back of your hair before he rests his chin on your shoulder and leaves a bristley kiss on your cheek.

“I’ve got an idea but I gotta go get something and you’ve gotta lie down.” He murmurs. 

You turn your head just enough to raise a single patchy eyebrow at him and he snorts. 

“Not like that you freaky fuck.” He pauses. “...Well, maybe later. But that wasn’t what I was planning I swear. Lie down on your front I’ll be back in a sec.” 

“'Kay.” You say, and catch his lips with yours for a split second before he flash steps out of the room. You end up with one arm dangling off the sofa to avoid putting it above your head and the scratchy cushion wedged between your knees but you’re too relaxed to care.

When he comes back he straddles your hips with a cursory “Comin’ though.” and you hear him unscrew something and set the lid aside. You almost strain your neck trying to turn far enough to see what he’s doing but he gently redirects your head until he’s got you where he wants you and slowly lowers his hands to your back.

You swear. Loudly. Holy shit hecking balls, whatever he’s putting on your back is _cold_. He smooths it up over your shoulders and all the way down to the small of your back, massaging it in. By the time he’s run his hands down the length of you once everything is starting to tingle and you squirm and squeak like a wriggler but he just tightens his grip on your hips and kneads your shoulders like he’s making a pizza and doesn’t move on until you’re melting beneath him. He touches your spine gently at first and you know he’ll be fretting about how sensitive your port scars are today so you hum approvingly to encourage him to keep going (he stays clear of the back of your neck though, for which you are eternally grateful). He digs his fingers into the small of your back, slowly pushing each vertebrae up until it clicks. It feels good, sooo good, and when he’s done and he’s got his thumbs right in the tightest knot in your shoulder blade your eyes drift closed and you just kind of drool helplessly into the sofa cushions for a while. Time ticks by completely out of your notice, and it’s only when he stops, sitting back on your thighs and wiping his hands on his jeans, that you realise you are purring like a machine. 

“Good?” He asks again.

“Mmmnrrrrr.” You say.

He rolls you onto your side and manhandles your head into his lap so he has room to sit with you, one hand lazily stroking through your hair and scritching at the base of your horn while he fusses with the remote with the other. Somewhere else in the flat you hear something robotic whirr into gear for some reason or another and you hook your arm through the crook of his knee, fiddling absently with a tear in his jeans. You yawn and stretch out across the rest of the couch like a contented meowbeast as you watch him flick through channels almost absently, finally settling on some junk show about human american truck drivers. Hell yeah.


End file.
